Al-Mourabitoun

al-Mourabitoun was a Salafi jihadist group formed in August 2013 as a merger of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA) and the Masked Men Brigade, consisting of 100 fighters in Mali, Niger, and Libya. It was led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, although a faction of the group later left and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

Biography
al-Mourabitoun means "the Sentinels" in Arabic, and the group was named for the Almoravid Caliphate, whose name originated from this word. The organization was formed when the MOJWA and Masked Men Brigade of Mokhtar Belmokhtar decided to unite to become a strong group in West Africa. Despite Belmokhtar being the founder, the first leader was Abubakr al-Masri, an Egyptian veteran of the Soviet-Afghan War and Afghanistan War who was assassinated by French special forces on 17 April 2014.

al-Mourabitoun was allied to Ansar Dine and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and it was known for its shared views with al-Qaeda, as it was devoted to waging jihad against non-Sunni Muslims. In January 2013 it carried out the In Amenas hostage crisis, killing 38 foreigners before special forces killed the 29 kidnappers. The group was responsible for kidnapping foreigners and holding them for ransom, as the In Amenas massacre was supposed to be a hostage-taking operation in exchange for ransom money. In March 2015 two Malians, a French citizen, and a Belgian citizen were shot dead at a restaurant in Bamako, and on 20 November 2015 27 people were killed at the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako when terrorists spared non-Muslims and held 180 hostages. The French special forces, GIGN, assisted Malian special forces in storming the hotel and killing the three attackers, and al-Mourabitoun claimed that it carried out the attack alongside AQIM.